Abstract

Eleonore Stump’s Atonement marks a significant advance in atonement theory, especially in its nuanced approach to ethical and relational complexities, but tends to treat sin as social only insofar as one individual’s sin can harm or shame another. I argue that that social sin requires social redemption and that exemplarism would provide a solution. Christ’s pursuit of love and justice, in the midst of oppression, temptation and struggle, offers a distinctive model of virtue, toward collective restoration of the world. While we cannot redeem ourselves, in calling us to effect justice and union with one another, God may also call us closer to Godself.